Cog in the Wheel

Quest · Chapter 2 · Old Mine

Route

  • You need one of the cogs for this hand-in with Ian.

Quest Parts

  • Cog in the Wheel:
  • I gotta find a cog.:
  • I gotta take the cog to Ian.:

The broken machine beneath the mine

The collapsed tunnel has become more than a blocked passage. The Brotherhood's templars believe a minecrawler nest lies beyond it, but Ian refuses to send his workers into a dangerous excavation for another faction's desperate plan. One of the mine's ore crushers has also broken down, leaving an orc prisoner idle until the machine can be repaired.

Ian's solution is deliberately limited: find a replacement cog and he will consider granting permission to clear the rubble. The request gives the hero a concrete problem to solve, but it does not make Ian a willing participant. Even after receiving the part, he remains convinced that the plan risks good men for the sake of crawler fluid.

A small part in a dangerous plan

The cog is a piece of leverage, not the key to the whole operation. With Ian still resistant, Lester gathers Diego, Milten, and Gorn to find another way. Their plan is to channel the power of blue ore through a spell and blast an opening, a proposal that sounds reckless even to the people making it.

The hero's role sits between those competing concerns. The mine needs its machinery, the templars want the nest, and the mages understand the ore's destructive potential better than anyone else. Repairing the crusher keeps the mine running, but the larger implication is that no single camp controls the solution. The path forward depends on several factions combining skills they normally keep apart.

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